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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tions ; and, on the other hand, when 

 Mr. Speacer seeks out the word 

 "equilibration" to express adjust- 

 ment of structure to function, he is 

 indignant at him for not using the 

 language of intention. He declares 

 the word to be " laboriously barba- 

 rous and incompetent in its mean- 

 ing," and altogether a " hideous cre- 

 ation." It always comes round to 

 this in the end that the duke is 

 entirely right and his opponents 

 entirely wrong ; and if that gratify- 

 ing conclusion can not be proved, 

 why, then it is assumed. We wonder 

 "whether the critic could not possi- 

 bly make a personal application of 

 the following judicious observation 

 which we find in his article : " It is 

 one of the infirmities of the human 

 mind that, when it is thoroughly 

 possessed by one idea, it not only 

 sees everything in the light of that 

 idea, but can see nothing that does 

 not lend itself to support the domi- 

 nant conception." This is precisely 

 tbe duke's case : he sees nothing that 

 does not to his mind seem to support 

 his dominant conception ; and yet, 

 strange to say, after delivering him- 

 self of the apothegm, the only ap- 

 plication he can make of it is to 

 "the Darwinian school." If ever 

 there was a case in which one might 

 whisper, " De te fdbula narratiir,^^ 

 this seems to be one. 



On the subject of rudimentary 

 organs Mr. Spencer's critic indulges 

 in much special pleading. He says 

 we can never be sure " whether these 

 represent organs which have degen- 

 erated or organs which are waiting 

 to be completed." Few naturalists, 

 we think, would agree to this. But 

 why should any organ " wait to be 

 completed," unless its completion is 

 dependent on some prolonged nat- 

 ural process ? And if a natm'al 

 process can complete an organ, 

 why might not a natural process 

 have created its first beginnings ? 



The duke seems to us to do here 

 something more illegitimate than 

 anything he charges on the Darwin- 

 ian school. Confronted with the 

 fact that organs are developed by a 

 series of actions and reactions, of in- 

 crements and adaptations, each one 

 of which has its place in the chain 

 of physical antecedents and conse- 

 quents, he deliberately uses the ex- 

 pression " waiting to be completed " 

 for the purpose of creating the im- 

 pression that natural processes count 

 for nothing, but that the " comple- 

 tion " depends on some kind of divine 

 fiat. If the organs in question are in 

 reality being completed by small im- 

 provements in adaptation from gen- 

 eration to generation which, no 

 doubt, the duke believes is it honest 

 to speak of them as " waiting to be 

 completed " ? We do not speak of a 

 tree " waiting " to grow when it is 

 growing, or of fruit " waiting " to 

 ripen when it is ripening. 



Finally, the duke says that a 

 philosophy which is neutral " on the 

 most fundamental of all questions 

 respecting the interpretation of the 

 universe" the question, namely, 

 " whether the physical forces are the 

 masters or the servants of that house 

 in which we live " " can not prop- 

 erly be said to be a philosophy at 

 all." It seems to us, on the contrary, 

 that it is just because Mr. Spencer 

 leaves that question unanswered, 

 and shows that it must remain un- 

 answered at least in any sense that 

 would satisfy the Duke of Argyll 

 that his system may claim to be a 

 philosophy. His real answer to the 

 question, as we conceive, w^ould be 

 that the physical forces are alter- 

 nately servants and masters. They 

 are servants as ministering to our 

 mental operations and masters as 

 determining their limits. The pow- 

 ers of mind are servants as being 

 everywhere conditioned by the laws 

 of matter, and they are masters as 



